Monday, August 4, 2008

ICE Goes After Legal Immigrants

Last year Immigration and Custom Enforcement deported more than 270, 000. In that number there were 95,752 "criminal aliens" -- not all of them undocumented and not all of them murders, gang-bangers, felons. Some were here legally and some were subject to deportation for relatively -- no, ridiculously -- minor misdemeanors. One man faces deportation for walking out of a grocery store with the pen he used to sign a check. His charge: theft of a thirty-cent pen. Still a 1997 law meant to get tough with alien criminals is now being interpreted at such extremes by ICE -- usually as the immigrant returns to the States. Often people who have lived in this country for years peacefully are caught for some minor discretion, and some have even paid penalties for their crimes. Yet they face exclusion from this country. (See Arizona Republic article.)

No comments: